In which the four companions encounter an old man in the forest
by another rowan
Summary: "Most people, in Touya's experience, were very happy to have their temple cleansed of malevolent demons." A loose recast of HnG as Journey to the West/Monkey. [crosspost: originally published 2010-07-23 on AO3.]


Most people, in Touya's experience, were very happy to have their temple cleansed of malevolent demons.

The last village hadn't been quite so grateful. In fact, Touya reflected as he rubbed at the bruise left on his shoulder by a well-aimed radish, their farewell had been nothing short of rude. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that they'd rid the village of not only the demons, but the temple as well.

In short, they'd been run out of town without even a chance to replenish their supplies. Now, after a long day trudging up muddy mountain roads on empty stomachs, tempers were fraying.

"I didn't mean to knock down the _whole_ temple," Shindou says again, half-apologetically and half-defensively.

"You never _mean_ to," Touya says, "but you _do_." It comes out more meanly then he intends, but it's true. Despite the power limiter around Shindou's forehead, he still has more strength than he knows how to handle.

"Well, what was I supposed to do?" Shindou snaps. "Wait for us to get eaten? Your plan wasn't working fast enough."

"I don't know," Touya fires back just as quickly. "Maybe give us more than five seconds warning before dropping a whole building on our heads?"

"I was trying to save your life!"

"Strange, because when I pulled you out from under that falling beam I was under the impression I was saving yours!"

Walking a few paces ahead, Isumi and Waya exchange glances and almost imperceptible sighs. They've heard it all before.

They're still bickering in fits and starts when they come across the first house they've seen since leaving the village. An old man sits crosslegged on the wooden deck, smoking a pipe and listening to their conversation with apparent amusement. His cackle of laughter cuts their argument short. "You boys are louder than a herd of cattle. I'm half deaf and I could hear you from a mile away!"

Startled only for a moment, Touya is the first to regain his composure. "Good evening, honourable sir," he says, and bows very correctly. "My name is Touya Akira. On behalf of my companions, I offer our apologies for disturbing your evening's peace. We're not normally so disruptive," he lies. "Some of us were raised by wild animals, I'm afraid."

He doesn't need to look around to know Shindou is scowling.

"Sir, if we may ask," Isumi says, also bowing, "would you know of any inns or temples further along the trail where we might seek shelter for a night?"

"My name's Kuwabara, boy. And no, there's no inns around here. I'm the only soul you'll meet in the next ten miles. You'll be sleeping on the ground tonight, you can count on it." The old man's eyes crinkle up as he laughs.

Waya muffles an audible groan.

"Ah, but why not," Kuwabara says suddenly, though they've not asked any question. He taps his pipe sharply and stands, leaning heavily on his staff. "You can stay with me tonight. There's enough food for all of you." He turns and heads into the house.

The four companions exchange wary glances. The offer is tempting but-

"Last time we accepted a free meal, _we_ got drugged and _you_ got kidnapped," Shindou says darkly, glaring in Touya's direction, referring to an incident four villages back.

"I rescued myself that time," Touya says indignantly. "You weren't any help at all."

"What do you think, Waya?" Isumi says, interrupting hastily before it turns into another argument. "I don't seem to sense any danger."

Waya nods firmly. "I think he's okay. And there's four of us, anyway, if anything goes wrong. Also," he adds, as his stomach rumbles, "I'm starving!"

Kuwabara calls from inside the house. "Hurry up now, dinner's waiting." A delicious smell of steamed rice and vegetables wafts from the open door. Waya doesn't wait to be asked again, and after a moment Isumi follows with a shrug.

"Well, alright," Shindou says, grudgingly, "but if this turns out to be another trap-"

"I'll have to rescue myself again, alright, I get it," Touya says, rolling his eyes.

At the table, all caution forgotten, Waya and Shindou fall on the dishes like ravenous wolves. It's left to Touya and Isumi to carry on polite conversation, as usual.

"It's been more than two years since we set out from home, and still no end in sight," Isumi explains when Kuwabara comments on the worn state of their clothes. "Even the holes in our shoes have holes in them by now!"

"Where are you going?" Kuwabara says. "Surely you must have some pressing reason to bring you so far from your families and homes?"

"Until we've succeeded in our quest, we have no homes," Touya says, chin tilted proudly. "We won't turn back until we have-"

"We're gonna find the Hand of God," Shindou breaks in, through a mouthful of food so it comes out sounding more like _mumble mumble mumble_. Shindou returns Touya's stare with an impudent grin, not at all intimidated, before shovelling another huge serving of rice into his mouth.

"Yes," Touya says, turning back to Kuwabara. "As Shindou says, we seek the Hand of God."

Kuwabara's eyes open up very wide for a moment. "Indeed," he says softly, eyes gleaming, rubbing the whiskers on his chin with a gnarled hand, "can it be so? Can four children truly be the ones to find what we've been seeking for so many centuries?"

Beside him, Touya senses Shindou shifting at the word _children_ and isn't surprised when he bursts out, "We're not kids, you know. I've faced down more dangers and monsters than any old-"

Out of sight beneath the table, Touya puts his hand on Shindou's knee, just lightly. _Peace_. Shindou shuts up abruptly, flushing.

"What Shindou means to say," Touya says, "is that we may be young, but we're not lacking in determination. We've already been tested with great adversity and survived to tell the tale."

His eyes drift in the direction of the weapons they've left lined up by the door beside their packs. Sword, staff, rake and crescent, the blades honed to gleaming edges.

Kuwabara isn't offended. Indeed he throws his head back and laughs again, a high-pitched _hee hee hee hee_. "Don't worry, boys, after hearing how far you've come already, I've no doubt about your strength." He sets aside his bowl and chopsticks. "But you'd do well to remember that strength alone is not always the answer."

"What do you mean?" Shindou demands.

"Hmmm. Why don't we clean up, and I can tell you a story while we're working?" Kuwabara says. "You can help too," he adds, nodding at Waya, whose incipient smirk disappears as quickly as it appeared.

In the end they all end up lending a hand - Waya washing, Shindou drying, Touya putting things away, and Isumi sweeping - while Kuwabara reclines on a bamboo mat and leisurely peels an orange. In between observations on their progress ("I think you missed a spot there, Isumi," he says) he tells them about the Monkey King, who bet against the Buddha and lost.

"Monkey was strong," Kuwabara says, "strong enough to leap oceans in a single bound, and to defeat the hosts of Heaven, and master the seventy-two transformations. In his arrogance, the Monkey King believed he could best even the Buddha." He snorts at the very thought. "What a fool."

"What did the Buddha do?" Touya says, stacking crockery as quietly as he can. At his elbow Shindou dries off a stack of plates, his hands working slower and slower as he too listens.

"'Well, Monkey,' Buddha said, 'if you can escape from the palm of my hand, then truly you're worthy of the title Great Sage, Equal of Heaven.'

"The Monkey King thought this was too easy, and leapt not only from the Buddha's palm but to the end of the world itself in a single bound. To show his cleverness, he marked his name on one of the five pillars that stood at the border of existence. _Here stood the Monkey King, he wrote, who leapt across the universe in a single step._

"But when Monkey went back to boast about what he'd done, the Buddha only smiled and held up his hand. There on Buddha's finger was the words Monkey had written, at the end of the universe, in the palm of his hand." Kuwabara wheezes with laughter, eyes crinkling up in amusement.

"The defeated Monkey King was trapped beneath a mountain, his prison sealed with a mantra. Five hundred years passed before he was freed, and then another fourteen years before he found enlightenment. Five hundred years," Kuwabara repeats, rubbing his chin again. "A long time, eh?"

For a moment there's only the clink of crockery, the swish-swish-swish of the broom.

"And then what?" Shindou demands.

"Then what?" Kuwabara's eyebrows shoot upwards. "And then this old man went to bed, that's what! Running around all night cooking and cleaning up after you..." he mutters with mock outrage.

He heaves himself to his feet, leaning heavily on his staff. As he shuffles out of the room he turns and smiles, his face creasing along well-worn lines. He's smiled often in his life, it's easy to see. "Goodnight, boys. Sleep well." The screen door slides shut behind him.

Done with their chores, the four travellers roll out their blankets and douse the lanterns. Outside the wind howls and shakes at the trees; it's a good night to be indoors.

"We should make an early start tomorrow. One more day like today, and we'll be over the mountains for sure," Isumi says.

"We'll be over _these_ mountains," Waya grumbles. "Who knows how many more there'll be?"

"Patience, Waya. You wouldn't last five minutes locked up, let alone five hundred years," Isumi says, amused. "We'll get there. No matter how many mountains we have to climb." Even drowsy and thick with sleep, there's a quiet resolve in his voice, a confidence that has grown and grown the further they've come on this journey.

"Bah," Waya says, but there's no sting to it. "I'd never get caught in the first place. Monkey was stupid. All power, no strategy. He was never going to-" he breaks off, yawning. "I'd do better. I'd figure it out." He mumbles on for a few minutes about tactics before passing smoothly from speaking into snoring.

Just as Touya thinks everyone else must be asleep, Shindou shifts and turns onto his back. There's just enough light from the moon shining though the shutters for him to see the outline of Shindou's face.

"I keep thinking about Monkey. How he was trapped under the mountain..." Shindou says, half to himself. "It must have been very hard. He must have been lonely, don't you think? Never hearing another voice, never seeing sunlight. Waiting hundreds of years for someone to find him."

He has the feeling that there's something more to what Shindou's saying, that maybe his words aren't really intended for Touya at all. He's in that other place now, the one he retreats to whenever Touya starts to ask him where he came from, how he learnt how to wield the staff that no one else can even lift.

Without letting himself think about it too much, Touya reaches out and twines his fingers around Shindou's. _I'm right here_. "Yes," he says. "I guess it would be lonely."

After a moment Shindou's hand squeezes back. "What about you? About the story, I mean?"

"Oh, I just thought it was a kind of riddle," Touya says, yawning. "Or an allegory, about how you can be so busy expecting to see one thing that you miss what's right in front of..."

Shindou's breathing has turned slower, louder.

"Shindou?" He's asleep, of course. "Idiot," Touya says, and promptly falls asleep himself.

The first thing Touya notices when he wakes up is that their fingers are still tangled together.

The second thing he notices is that Kuwabara's house has disappeared, and so has Kuwabara. He's lying on the forest floor, with a pebble digging into the small of his back; above him, instead of beams and thatches he sees waving tree branches. He can hear birds.

"What - what happened?" he says, sitting up.

Beside him, Shindou also starts to stir. "Argh, it's so bright out here," he moans, rubbing at his eyes with the back of one hand.

Isumi and Waya are already awake. They're tending to a hastily made campfire, where a pan of water is just starting to come to the boil.

"It seems Kuwabara was some kind of forest spirit," Isumi says, far too cheerful for this early in the morning. He sets out four cups and starts measuring out the last of the tea leaves. "A benign one, I presume, since we're still here with all limbs intact."

"And here I was hoping for breakfast," Waya says gloomily, prodding at the fire with a twig.

Shindou props himself up on one elbow, his hair like a bird's nest and his expression smug. "See? I told you it was too good to be true."

"You did not," Touya says. "You were too busy eating a dinner twice the size of your head to say anything of the kind."

"I did so! Before we even went inside, I told you-"

Although he can already tell this is going to be only the first of the day's many, many arguments, Touya leaves his hand next to Shindou's, with the tips of their fingers touching, and he smiles.


End file.
